Wednesday, December 28, 2005

teach me in time and faces

-Weeks with bronchitis, as of today: 6
-Current body weight, in pounds: 142 (Weight at swearing in: 154)
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-Number of students who have applied for my English class of 25: 93 (which is still WAY lower than average for reasons which are not worth going into).
-Bowel movements today: 1 (Which is always nice)
-Christmas present received in White Elephant exchange at my home while hosting a Christmas get-together for other PCV's: Pirated DVD with The Perfect Storm, Titanic, Waterworld, and Castaway on it.
-Number of other volunteers with whom I have spoken today who share my desire to stay in Bangladesh, stick with it, complete our service here, and love it in spite of the naysayers: 5 (As opposed to 1 from the other camp. Woot!)
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After finishing a Christmas in Bangladesh, it is my newly-formed opinion that everyone should spend a Christmas or two away from family and (old) friends and the usual trappings. Christmas felt a little weird. There were good times, but it just felt . . off. I can't really say that there was this nagging hurt or anything like that. Of course I missed people, but I've been missing them for awhile now and it's not exactly an acute pain or anything. So probably next Christmas I'll appreciate my family and traditions more. But even more important than that: I was forced to think about Christmas apart from how I've always thought about it and take a little step towards my own understanding of what it means.

Yes, I'm going to leave it ambiguous like that. That's right.

People from home who have crossed my mind for various reasons over the last week or so, except for my family because that's pretty obvious: Lo G., Brielle H., Ethan K., Anthony from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Reuben and Heidi VDK, Sophia DB, Cheech Marin, Maria DB, Bret H., Morgan ?, Joey from friends, Nick VDK, Matt D., Jack M., Jason VDB, Hillary Duff, MJ, Dusty A., Jennifer Aniston, piano teacher Joyce W., Bob & Julia from Peace Action, Pat H., and of course Vanilla Ice.

If your name's not here you are utterly unimportant to me, and the world at large. Call Cheech and ask him for his secrets.